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Tuesday, May 1, 2012

May Day! May Day! A little help here. . .

Today is May First, or May Day. It's the day when workers around the world traditionally rally to show solidarity and support for one another. It's the real Labor Day. While our own Labor Day has become a holiday, a day of picnics and celebration, May Day is and always will be an international day of protest--a reminder of worker rights and worker dignity in a world gone mad with greed.

Labor in America is under siege, like nothing we've seen in this country since the 1930s. Whatever wage scales and rights and protections had been fought for and won over the years have slowly eroded away in this new, bizarre and reckless version of take-over capitalism.

This year, here in America, planners have been at it for months, organizing what they're hoping will be a May Day to remember. There is talk of a general strike, but whether the grass-roots activists are able to get it up and running is still to be seen. Media for the 99 percent is planning to live-stream events across the country. You can watch it here: (No sign of James Dobson this year, by the way. He will be missed.)

Two years ago, I wrote a piece that included the origins of May Day. In case you missed it, here it is again. Note there is no mention of the Occupy movements. That's because they barely existed then. Now Occupy Wall Street and the spin-offs are forces to be reckoned with, just the tonic to wake up the sleeping giant known as labor. We'll see what happens today. The OWS website is going to livestream events around the world today. I hope you're out there, and I hope it's big.

May Day: Workers of the World, Hang in There

In a proclamation printed just before May 1, 1886, one publisher appealed to working people with this plea:

•Workingmen to Arms!•War to the Palace, Peace to the Cottage, and Death to LUXURIOUS IDLENESS.•The wage system is the only cause of the World's misery. It is
supported by the rich classes, and to destroy it, they must be either
made to work or DIE.•One pound of DYNAMITE is better than a bushel of BALLOTS!•MAKE YOUR DEMAND FOR EIGHT HOURS with weapons in your hands to meet
the capitalistic bloodhounds, police, and militia in proper manner. IWW, The Brief Origins of May Day

Okay, so that's the kind of thing that gave Socialists a bad name. In
the name of civility and good manners we've moved on to less violent
(but probably less effective) ways of getting our message across.
The larger point here, though, is that since the 19th century, workers
of the world have embraced May Day as the day to honor the sacrifices of the laboring classes.

In 1958, despite Joe McCarthy's earlier best efforts, the Cold War
Commies and Socialists were still purportedly climbing out from under
every rock in every little burg in the US. The VFW saw trouble in those
May Day celebrations and foiled those plotters by renaming it "Loyalty
Day". Congress made it official and Ike actually signed it into law, but now, apart from a few VFW chapters
and a few small towns, Loyalty Day is pretty much forgotten. (Not that
loyalty isn't important, mind you. It is. My loyalty to labor knows no
bounds.)

But despite their best efforts, May Day demonstrations in America are still going strong. Much of it centers on the controversial Arizona "Show your Papers" law today,
as hundreds of thousands in cities and towns all across the country are
scheduled to march in solidarity against immigration and worker
abuses.

But even as I write this James Dobson, formerly of Focus on the Family, is leading May Day, a Cry to God for a Nation in Distress on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Dobson and others, including Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association,
are calling it a "day of repentance and remembrance", addressing "The
greatest moral crisis since the Civil War", which seems to include
abortion, Obamacare, Obama in general, and the scary notion that there
are more "Socialists" than Republicans running Congress these days.

The Liberty Council will be there, as well. They wouldn't want to pass up a chance to sell their membership cards:

Oy. . .

So. May our efforts this May Day and every day forward bring peace
and equity to those who break their backs struggling to build this
nation. Solidarity until the sun ceases to shine or until worker equity
is a reality. Whichever comes first.

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Thanks to the Labor Movement

From Political Loud Mouth

"If by a 'Liberal' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people - their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties - someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a 'Liberal', then I'm proud to say I'm a Liberal."

-John Kennedy

Any Other Questions??

"Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things...every one! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor." -- Written by Lawrence O'Donnell and spoken by Jimmy Smits as Matt Santos on The West Wing

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What's going on here:

This is the site of a die-hard Democrat and a proud liberal woman. I care, I cry, and when I do I don't become a snowflake, I become a warrior.

Donald Trump, yes, THAT Donald Trump, is the President of the United States and the idea of checks and balances has been filed under "quaint". The Constitution is tattered and torn. Hand-wringing has become a national pastime.

After 10 years of this, I thought I might retire to the Shire, but, no...

The mountains are high and I am small, but Donald Trump is the president and that's just not right.

I trudge on.

Ramona Grigg, Writer, Fighter, Dreamer.

(The door is always open and I love company, but haters will need to do it somewhere else. We're all grown-ups here.)